YW 'Camp' - Seek

I just got back from a very adventurous 24 hours with the girls from church.  We were supposed to have our annual Stake YW camp which is usually three days at a property on a river, but due to warnings about flash flooding and lots of rain, we made a decision to hold it at the Weegena hall, and to cut it down to just being an overnighter.

This years group was a lot smaller to last years, with only 22 girls.  We started off with some ice breaker games inside the hall, and then we ventured outside before it started to rain.




It didn't take long for it to start drizzling, and we weren't keen on being stuck in a hall for the whole day and half, so we thought it would be fun to have a waterslide in the rain using some tarps.  It was heaps of fun watching the girls slide away (often coming off the end into sheep poo!).

 

We then headed back inside and had some time for devotional, scripture study and journal writing, to do with the theme of camp which was 'Seek', based around the 13th Article of Faith to 'seek after these things' (that are virtuous, lovely, or good report or praiseworthy). 

 

The girls always love the 'secret sister' pockets where they can leave treats and messages for one girl who they had randomly picked as their secret sister for camp.

 

East Ward provided us with a beautiful tea of chicken, salad and fresh vegetables. It was very yummy food, especially considering we were 'roughing it' on camp.

After tea each ward presented a skit to us, which had to have the theme 'Seek' in it somehow.  All of them were very, very funny and they had all put so much effort into them. 

After dinner we spent a couple of hours playing some hilarious games.  The clapping game totally cracked me up (please ignore my awful laugh!!).  The girl in the middle of the circle had no idea what was happening, but were only told that 'we are a panel of judges.  When we are satisfied with your performance, we will applaud you'.  The girls then stood their looking puzzled as everyone just stood there staring at them, and copying every single thing they did.  If they said 'what!?', then everyone else would. If they put their hands over their face, then everyone else would.  Finally they would click, that if they actually clapped their hands then everyone else would.

Logan was in the middle for ages and had no clue that she just had to clap her hands, to get them to clap.  She starting just being silly doing crazy moves, so everyone else copied and I just about wet myself laughing! Finally she gets what is going on, and starts clapping!

After lots of fun and crazy games, the girls got out their beds and settled down to watch a movie (at 10.30 pm).


Most of them lost interest after the first 15 minutes or so, and just spend the next few hours talking.  They were actually pretty good, and after my 'crabby teacher voice' coming out at 1.30 am to tell them to tone it down just a little, so some people could actually get some sleep (thinking of us 'oldies' of course) they quietened down enough for us to get a little bit of sleep.  Some girls did keep talking until 5 am.  They had been warned that I would be blowing my whistle at 8am ready for morning exercise.  I was wide awake at 7am so decided to be extra chirpy and loud just to pay them all back for talking all night :)

It was then time to go and wake up the girls who stayed up most of the night.  They all love my whistle as you can tell :)

It rained ALL night, so we were so glad that we had decided not to attempt camping in tents.  It was nice to wake up in the morning to a dry, warm hall.  Two of the girls ran through some yoga for us to get us all awake and ready to start the day.

We then had another devotional about 'seeking after good music and media' which some of the girls ran and did a great job.


We were supposed to finish at 9pm, so we knew it would be a long day inside all day and booked out the Deloraine Primary School indoor swimming pool.  It is such a lovely pool, and a big change to the outdoor pool that we had when I was at school there! Back over 25 years ago we were so lucky to have a pool at school, even if it was just an outdoor one.  It's hard to believe they have such a lovely facility there now. 


The girls had lots of fun swimming for a couple of hours..

and so did us leaders :)

On the way to the pool there was quite a bit of flooding across Weegena road in places, and the ditches had water just flowing down them like a little river.  It made us think a lot about the Queensland floods and how scary it must've been for them as we were a little bit scared about the water, and it nothing like what they had experienced.

During the two hours that we were at the pool, there was constant rain.  So much so, that when we headed back to the hall the road was covered so much more and in a lot more spots.  We had to drive through a lot of flooded spots and knew that it wasn't going to be safe to wait until 9pm to send everyone home as the water was rising so fast, and the rain just wasn't letting up.

We got back to the hall at lunch time and unfortunately had to make the decision to abandon camp and all head home (extra) early, just to make sure we all got out okay, and so people didn't have to drive in the dark.  It was getting so bad, that we had to even leave the hall in a mess, and just threw all our gear in our cars and had to go.  The roads were so bad on the way out, that a policeman came along and stopped us all and told us that further along the water was too high for us to drive though and we needed to turn around and take another way out to the highway.

After a little bit of excitement (and feeling a little bit scared!) I finally got through all the flooded areas and onto the highway. 


Despite having to finish our camp (turned into a very short overnighter) early, it was so much fun.  Even though it wasn't our normal camp, I think we had just as much fun and if not more, by staying all together in the hall.  I'm sure it's not one that the girls will forget quickly, but they will always remember the camp that got flooded out!